🔵 By Steven Leech. Photo by lauragrafie.
This is the story of Curtis the curious fish. His aquarium sits in the living room of a young man named Billy. He lives in it with his parents, his four brothers and three sisters. There is also a grumpy hermit crab named Oscar and an amenable sea anemone named Amy. Nothing changed in the tank where Curtis lived. He was a year old, but each of the 365 days had been the same as the last. He knew every inch of his tank, it was exactly 12 swishes at the tail long, by 8 swishes wide. There was a sandy bottom and some small coral formations. One of which was Oscar’s regular hiding place. Amy sat just outside at Oscar’s hiding place waving her many arms in every which direction in a vain attempt to draw attention to spare, he cared little for this inner workings of the aquarium. His focus in life was what in the world those strange creatures outside the tank were up to.
Curtis had just woken up, the bright light streaming through the living room window snapped him out of his slumber. Curtis swam up to the glass limit of his domain and watched the creature step away from the window and come toward him. Stretchy, that was what Curtis called him, because he was skinny and appeared to have been stretched in multiple directions.
“Well aren’t you the curious one,” Stretchy said as he reached the aquarium. He hunched down and met Curtis eye to eye. “You hungry?”
Curtis began to swim in circles to exhibit his enthusiasm. This was one of the few things to look forward to, meal time. Who knows why he looked forward to it, it was the same dull flavorless pellets that it was yesterday and the day before.
Stretchy grabbed the food tube and sprinkled some pellets into the fish tank right over the top of where Curtis was swimming in excited circles. His siblings and parents came rushing over to get their share. Oscar came out from his hiding place to scurry beneath the waterfall of pellets to catch any that slipped past Curtis and his family. Curtis only managed to snag two pellets, but that was enough to take the edge off. When he finished savoring the unsavory meal he swam down to where Oscar was munching on his second pellet.
“Oscar, Oscar,” he explained. “Tell me another story about the big water.”
Oscar had not always lived in the tank, Stretchy had found him in the shallows of the big water. Occasionally if Curtis asked nicely he could get Oscar to regale him with a story about his prior life.
“You have heard them all. Why must you always pester me to repeat them?”
Oscar complained grumpily.
“Please, please! Can’t you tell me the one of the killer scavenging birds again?” Pleaded Curtis.
“But you know it, you know it so well that you could tell it to me.”
“I just wish I could swim in the big water and see all the stuff you have seen, just one,” lamented Curtis.
“Well, I guess you can dream. But I am not telling you any stories today, so leave me alone.”
With that, Oscar scuttled off to his hideaway under the coral.
Curtis swam off in a huff. He spent the next hour alone with his thoughts, swimming laps around the tank. 12 swishes, over and over.
“How can I get out of here?” He wondered. Nobody ever left. The only time a fish had been removed from the tank was when his older sister died. When she died, Stretchy had fished her out of the tank and flushed her down the toilet.
An idea suddenly bloomed in Curtis’ head. If he were to fake his death, he could get flushed down the toilet. He was sure that the toilet would lead somewhere, probably to the big water. He didn’t know, but there was only one way to find out. All he knew is he couldn’t spend another day in this prison. He would rather die. So that’s what he did, he “died”, or pretended to. He rolled over, belly up and floated to the surface.
About 15 minutes later, Stretchy noticed that Curtis was “dead”. He tapped the glass, to no avail, Curtis continued to float upside down.
“Poor guy,” said Stretchy. He grabbed his net and fished out Curtis. All of the sudden Curtis couldn’t breathe. He opened his mouth, but could not get any air without the water passing through his gills. Stretchy walked to the bathroom. As he walked Curtis was beginning to lose consciousness. The darkness began to close in. his vision narrowed to a pin prick. Then just as Stretchy made it to the bathroom, Curtis slipped into unconsciousness. Stretchy dumped the blacked-out Curtis into the toilet.
“Goodbye little fella,” he said as she flushed the toilet.
Curtis came to as he swirled down the drain. He flew into the pipes. Everything was black, he flew up, d own, to the left, to the left again, then to the right and straight down and breakneck speed. Then he flew out of an opening in a cascading waterfall. With a small splash he landed in the big water. He knew what it was right away. It was salt water just like Oscar had told him. He was so happy. He was bursting with excitement. He was free. He could go anywhere he wanted, do anything he wanted. And right now he wanted to do it all.
So Curtis swam off into the sunset.